Grandmother Discovers Her Weight Gain Was Caused by a 140-Pound Tumor

Mary Clancey, a 71-year-old woman from Pennsylvania, lost 180 pounds in five hours.

That dramatic weight loss, however, wasn’t through a fad diet. It came through surgery that removed an enormous tumor from her abdomen.

Before doctors discovered the source of her health concerns, Clancey wasn’t surprised that she was gaining weight as she got older, but found it odd that it was accumulating around her stomach like a pregnancy. She was dismayed her attempts to slim down were to no avail. “Everything that was on TV, I tried,” she told the Washington Post. “Hydroxycut. Lipozene. I ate more lettuce than a rabbit ate.”

After a blood clot sent Clancey to the hospital, doctors were shocked by the size of the 140-pound ovarian cyst that caused it—bigger that the frame of the CT scan that caught it.

According to the Washington Post, larger masses are generally less aggressive forms of cancer than smaller tumors, which are more likely to spread around the body. Regardless, the size Clancey’s cyst was impeding the functions of her other organs, so doctors performed emergency surgery to remove the mass—along with 40 pounds of excess skin.